Finally. I read a Nordisk Krimi novel written by a local (Danish) author.

Sara Blædel's Kald Mig Prinsesse (Call me Princess) tells a story about a policewoman working for the Copenhagen Police's criminal department named Louise Rick. Just like other Nordisk Krimi novels I am more than sure that Louise Rick would be the main star in other Blædel's criminal novels (although I haven't really browsed them).

In this first book, Rick was assigned to investigate a brutal rape case involving a young woman named Susanne Hansson and a guy she met over a dating site on the internet. As the investigation proceeded, Rick found out that Hansson's case was not the only one. There was this rapist, who was hiding behind various aristocratic made-up usernames and his good looking face, lurking in the world wide web trying to find females who could be charmed and were weak enough to be his prey.

One of the rapist victim turned up dead in the morgue after she was being gagged and raped brutally in her apartment after she invited the man home for a "hyggelig" time (hyggelig is a Danish word for "cozy") at her place. The situation was getting more complicated for Rick when she found out that her best friend Camilla Lind, who is a journalist in the local newspaper, was also prowling the netdating sites to find a future boyfriend and at the same time trying to sniff a headline story from Rick.

Not only that - Louise Rick had to deal with the fact that her long-term boyfriend Peter announced that he had an affair with his colleague and wanted to end the relationship. Her 24/7 job as an investigative officer at the capital's police squad was also one of the reasons of their damaged relationship.

I enjoyed this book from the first to the last page, mainly because it feels so familiar to me. The places, the crime scenes, the streets, the area - I know them all and it's still a surreal experience for me to read a book about places where I currently live so it is rather fascinating. However, I must admit that Blædel is not as brilliant as Camilla Läckberg in creating a rich criminal / murder story. Unlike other "krimi" authors, Blædel didn't bother to create a thorough background for the story so this story fell rather short and wasn't as gripping as other books.

The relationship between the two friends Camilla Lind and Louise Rick was also confusing for me as I got the impression that they were actually competing with each other than being friends. This is perhaps of course intentionally created by the author as both girls have opposite professions (journalist vs. police officer) but having read many of the expatriate blogs about how Danes make friends, I begin to think that it's perhaps a completely natural factor in a friendship between two or more Danish girls.

All in all, I like the book and can't wait to read the second one in the series

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